Belial

In Courts and Palaces he also Reigns / And in luxurious Cities ~ Paradise Lost

Belial (Hebrew: בְּלִיַּעַל‎, Bəlīyyaʿal) is a term occurring in the Old Testament which later became personified as the devil in Christian texts of the New Testament. Alternate spellings include Baalial, Balial, Belhor, Beliall, Beliar, Berial, Bylyl, Beliya'al, and Belias. He is sometimes confused with the Semitic god Baal.

Quotes

• And he led them down from the Mount of Olives and looked wrathfully upon the angels that keep hell (Tartarus), and beckoned unto Michael to sound the trumpet in the height of the heavens. And Michael sounded, and the earth shook, and Beliar came up, being held by 660 angels and bound with fiery chains.
  And the length of him was 1,600 cubits and his breadth 40 cubits, and his face was like a lightning of fire and his eyes full of darkness. And out of his nostrils came a stinking smoke; and his mouth was as the gulf of a precipice, and the one of his wings was four-score cubits.
  • Questions of Bartholomew 12–13
    660 angels] 560 Gr., 6,064 Lat. 1, 6,060 Lat. 2
    breadth 40] Lat. 1, 300, Slav. 17
    Lat. 2, his length 1,900 cubits, his breadth 700, one wing of him 80
    darkness] like sparks, Slav.
    M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament (1924)

And when Night / Darkens the Streets, then wander forth the Sons / Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine. ~ Paradise Lost

• Belial came last, then whom a Spirit more lewd
  Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love
  Vice for it self: To him no Temple stood
  Or Altar smoak’d; yet who more oft then hee
  In Temples and at Altars, when the Priest
  Turns Atheist, as did Ely’s Sons, who fill’d
  With lust and violence the house of God.
  In Courts and Palaces he also Reigns
  And in luxurious Cities, where the noyse
  Of riot ascends above thir loftiest Towrs,
  And injury and outrage: And when Night
  Darkens the Streets, then wander forth the Sons
  Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.
  Witness the Streets of Sodom, and that night
  In Gibeah, when hospitable Dores
  Yielded thir Matrons to prevent worse rape.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I
    In Gibeah, ...] In Gibeah, when the hospitable door / Exposed a matron, to avoid worse rape.

• [...] On th' other side up rose
  Belial, in act more graceful and humane;
  A fairer person lost not Heav'n; he seemd
  For dignity compos'd and high exploit:
  But all was false and hollow; though his Tongue
  Dropt Manna, and could make the worse appear
  The better reason, to perplex and dash
  Maturest Counsels: for his thoughts were low;
  To vice industrious, but to Nobler deeds
  Timorous and slothful: yet he pleas'd the eare, [...]
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II

• Or, my scrofulous French novel
    On gray paper with blunt type!
  Simply glance at it, you grovel
    Hand and foot in Belial's gripe:
  If I double down its pages
    At the woeful sixteenth print,
  When he gathers his greengages,
    Ope a sieve and slip it in't?
  • Robert Browning, "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister" (1839)

And his Seal is this, which is to be worn as aforesaid, etc. ~ Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis

Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis

Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King. Boleskine, Foyers, Inverness: Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, 1904

• The Sixty-eighth Spirit is Belial. He is a Powerful King, and was created next after Lucifer. He appeareth in the Form of Two beautiful Angels sitting in a Chariot of Fire. He speaketh with a Comely Voice, and declareth that he fell first from among the worthier sort, that were before Michael, and other Heavenly Angels. His Office is to distribute Presentations and Senatorships, etc., and to cause favour of Friends and of Foes. He giveth excellent Familiars, and governeth 80 Legions of Spirits. Note well that this King Belial must have Offerings, Sacrifices and Gifts presented unto him by the Exorcist, or else he will not give True Answers unto his Demands. But then he tarrieth not one hour in the Truth, unless he be constrained by Divine Power. And his Seal is this, which is to be worn as aforesaid, etc.
  • No. 68